Hands-on examination of Linux disk caching effects
8th July 2013
LinuxAteMyRAM (also as a PDF: Linux disk caching effects)
To examine the behavior of your Linux box disk caching under specific loads, see Linux write cache mystery (PDF).
To understand what is going on, see also The Linux Page Cache and pdflush (PDF) by the same author, Gregory Smith.
Another useful resource is OpenSUSE’s Tuning the Memory Management Subsystem, which nicely explains some of the kernel cache/memory-related configuration options.